Elon Musk's xAI unveils first coding agent in bid to rival Anthropic

By Carmen Arroyo

 

Elon Musk’s xAI is rolling out its first artificial intelligence coding agent, called Grok Build, in an attempt to catch up to Anthropic PBC’s Claude on streamlining software development.

 

The artificial intelligence model, which is in early testing and only available for paying subscribers, is the startup’s initial push into professional coding. The agent can complete complex coding tasks following a user’s commands, according to a post on xAI’s website.

 

Musk and xAI are racing to catch up to other AI companies on coding, a lucrative market for AI and an area where the billionaire admits his firm has fallen behind. Michael Nicolls, xAI’s president and an executive at Starlink, has urged staffers at the startup to match Claude’s performance across tasks, calling it a “near-term goal.”

 

Musk, the world’s richest person, has set out to rebuild his AI company in advance of parent company SpaceX’s initial public offering later this year, which is expected to be the largest in history. That rebuilding process has included layoffs, expensive new partnership deals and a spate of hirings to try and replace xAI’s founding members, who have all left. 

 

Last month, xAI inked a deal to partner with AI firm Cursor on coding as well as computing resources. Cursor engineers have already been working with the startup in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the matter. Still, other key engineers at xAI’s Palo Alto office have recently left, including Devendra Chaplot, a Mistral AI founder who joined in March, and Beibin Li, who led xAI’s post-training team.